


The Nothing Hurts 'Verse

by melannen



Category: Les Misérables (2012), Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Clothing, Coffee, Coming Out, Dancing, Donuts, Established Relationship, Fluff, Historical Reenactment, M/M, Self-Indulgent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-02
Updated: 2014-10-02
Packaged: 2018-02-19 14:13:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,591
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2391314
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/melannen/pseuds/melannen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which there are ficlets set in an egregiously fluffy modern-day JVJ AU and there is a lot of awkward old men drinking coffee together, falling in love, slandering Marius Pontmercy and tripping over things.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The One With The Powdered Sugar

**Author's Note:**

> I haven't bothered actually writing out the backstory for any of this because it's a thin excuse for writing happy modern-day JVJ based on a dream I once had and some behind-the-scenes shots from the movie, but this is the AU where Valjean learned computers in prison, became one of the first silicon valley millionaires while still on parole, got sick and tired of all the media coverage about 'inspiring excon made good', sold his company to Yahoo and moved to a small town somewhere in America to raise his adopted granddaughter while her mother finished the fieldwork for a PhD, and he met Javert the local cop and promptly started turning his entire world upside-down. Enjoy.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Valjean brings coffee and donuts to the cop stationed outside his house, and has a small but fortuitous mishap involving a pug.

The kid said "oops, sorry, Mister!" as he went whizzing by. He did look mildly regretful in the glimpse Valjean got of his face; the pug sitting in the bike's basket growled and then rolled over, almost sending the whole contraption careening off balance again as he disappeared around the street corner.

Valjean looked down in mild despair, gave up on wiping his hands on anything, and somewhat pitifully tried to pull his shirt away from where it was clinging to his chest. At least he'd only come out in his undershirt and a pair of very old jeans, so no great loss.

"Should I go chase him down and arrest him?" a too-familiar voice drawled, and Valjean looked up to see Police Lieutenant Javert leaning against the passenger door of his unmarked car.

"Oh, no, please don't," Valjean said, doing what he was afraid was a terrible job of hiding his flusterment. "No harm done, I'm sure it was just boyish energy."

"Are you sure? I'd say it's a clear case of assault and battery."

"What?" Valjean asked.

Javert nudged at the wreckage between them with one well-shined boot. "To whatever it was you were carrying," he clarified, and then frowned. "Is that some kind of cake? I disavow any accidental puns involving batter."

Valjean looked at it again. The tray he'd brought out in a fit of optimism was clearly a total loss: most of its contents were a soggy, crushed mass on the pavement, and the rest of them were smeared down his front. A sad and crumpled cup rolled toward the storm drain, leaking a thin stream of dark liquid.

"What were you doing, anyway? You were only gone for fifteen minutes, and it's still early," Javert said.

"I thought I'd bring you some coffee," Valjean replied helplessly. "You've been out here all night."

"Coffee for the cops?" he said, one side of his mouth curling up into what was almost a smile.

"And donuts," Valjean added. "It doesn't seem to have come off very well."

"It certainly _went on_ ," Javert said, half to himself, with a dark look in his eyes that Valjean couldn't decipher, and added, louder, "Powdered sugar donuts, I see."

Valjean wiped roughly at the scatter of white across the hair that showed in the V of his shirt collar, above where the spilt coffee had soaked the white knit to his skin. It didn't help much, just got more on his hands. All of the sugar from the bottom of the box must have landed on him when he dropped it. "I've got, uh, cinnamon bagels in the house," he said. "I can put the coffeemaker on while I shower and change, if you'd like to come in and wait."

"Valjean," Javert said with infinite patience, "I'm running a stakeout, not a coffee date. Your daughter's being stalked, or had you forgotten?"

"You can watch for stalkers just as well in the house as outside?" Valjean offered with a cautious half-smile of his own. "Besides, you go off-shift in less than five minutes; I know better than to try to interrupt you when you're on duty. Your replacement's already here," he added, gesturing with one white-smeared thumb over his shoulder. "I already gave her her coffee."

"Of course you did," Javert said, and wiped one hand down his face. "Coffee and bagels?"

"And a shower for yourself, if you want one. I'm sure it's been a long night."

Javert raised his eyebrows. "Can I help peel you out of those wet things first?"

Valjean's only hope was that the powdered sugar would hide some of the blush. "Would that be, uh, professional?"

"As you said," Javert replied, locking the car door, "I'm off-duty as of thirty seconds from now. And this time you're not actually the suspect."

"Well, in that case," Valjean rubbed a hand against the back of his neck. Little streams of powdered sugar cascaded along the valleys of his pecs. "If you wanted to. You could."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

(they did eventually have the bagels. But they ended up having to re-heat the coffee in the microwave. Twice.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted some time ago on Tumblr.


	2. The One With The Period Costumes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's History Days in a certain small town! Dot-com millionaire Valjean has been elected ceremonial mayor for the week, but who will open the dancing at the 1833 Costume Ball?

Javert glared around the apparently-disorganized activity in the community center gym, until he finally saw a smudge of green-wool costume on the mostly-folded bleachers. Valjean had wedged himself across the two top rows; his arms were folded around himself and, from the motions of his head, seemed to be talking to himself, which was never a good sign. Javert was glad he'd thought of the coffee.

With one cardboard cup in each hand, he made his way toward Valjean's refuge, mostly succeeding in avoiding the women and teenagers who were busy with decorations and moving furniture. Most of them weren't yet in their costumes for the evening, preferring their ordinary jeans and sweatshirts for this work over the layers and layers of crepe and silk that made up a 19th century ball gown. 

Javert, like Valjean, had been wearing his costume most of the day - his was a blue wool policeman's uniform, that was kept waiting in the station for whoever drew the short straw each year. It was usually within a few decades of the right period for whatever year was chosen for History Days. The wear and patches that it had acquired in the interim presumably only made it more authentic for a historic policeman's garb. Javert found he rather liked it: especially, though he would not have admitted it under torture, the long woolen greatcoat that gave a grand dramatic emphasis to his movements. He liked the hat, too, although as it was traditional to hate it with a passion, he was carrying it tucked under one elbow.

Also, the coat was warm. It was chilly enough down on the floor, this early in spring, and with so many fewer people than the space was designed for, Javert was cold even swathed in several layers of vaguely-authentic wool uniform. He climbed the stairs to the top of the bleachers, and handed one of the two takeout coffee cups he was carrying to Valjean, who was stretched out awkwardly across two rows and probably unforgivably wrinkling the coat that went with his own outfit, which had been hand-tailored for him by several of the leading ladies of the town. He was hunched into the coat against the chill, somehow making his broad shoulders look smaller. Javert was glad he'd thought of the coffee (as an excuse, his brain reminded him; but you don't actually need an excuse to talk to Valjean, you know, he seems to authentically like you, for some strange reason.)

"Oh! Thanks," Valjean said over Javert's inner monologue. He half-distractedly wrapped one of his hands around the cup, and then patted the seat next to him. "Sit down? You'll get the best view of the chaos."

It was hard to imagine that in only a few hours this room would be something resembling a 19th century formal ballroom. A team on two rather precarious-looking ladders were hanging a banner from the folded-up basketball hoop which read "History Days Opening Ball : Welcome to 1833!" while a child below them industriously inflated balloons.

"Somehow," said Javert as he lowered himself carefully onto the metal bench, trying not to overstrain the trousers that came with the uniform, "I suspect that balls in the 1830s involved somewhat less in the way of glitter and paper streamers."

"Never underestimate the tastelessness of the 1830s. I've spent the last three weeks having to deal with Cosette and her ridiculous ballgown. I don't think I'll ever recover." Valjean shuddered theatrically and then took a sip of his coffee.

"Oh, come on, it's not _that_ bad, I kind of like some of the styles, myself," said a woman's voice from somewhere nearby. Javert glanced over and saw Valjean's smartphone propped on a clipboard on his other side, with a speakerphone call in progress. So he hadn't been talking to himself. "Is that your policeman?" the voice added.

"Well, I don't own him," Valjean said, and then gestured between Javert and the phone. "Lieutenant, you're speaking to Cosette's mother, Fantine. She's working for the TB Alliance, off somewhere - where is it this month, Fantine?" 

A thin blonde-haired woman waved at him in low-quality video. "Cape Town," she replied. "As you know very well, Papa Jean. Don't let this man convince you he's not involved, Lieutenant, he writes software for us."

Javert knew that Valjean was Cosette's guardian, not a biological relation, but he'd never been clear on why. A globe-trotting mother made things somewhat clearer, but instead of commenting on that he raised an eyebrow at Valjean. "I thought you were retired?"

Valjean shrugged. "I did a little web design for them. Pro bono, as a favor to Fantine."

There was a scoffing sound from the phone that strongly implied he'd done more than web design - which Javert already suspected; there was no way that one of the first of the Silicon Valley millionaires had been doing just "a little web design" on the side, but instead of following up on that, Fantine said, "He's sitting up here brooding and dithering about whether to let my daughter open the dancing tonight. In her perfectly nice dress - I might have literally killed for a blue silk ballgown with six-foot diameter petticoats and poufy sleeves when I was sixteen." 

"Those sleeves?" Valjean raised his eyebrows.

"Okay, maybe not _precisely_ those sleeves. But the dress is not the point, Jean. She's sixteen. Do you want me to tell you some more about what I was doing when I was sixteen?"

Valjean waved a hand. "It's not the dress. Or her age. It's her _partner_."

Javert winced. "Pontmercy?"

Valjean sighed, and bounced the back of his head against the wall. "Pontmercy."

"He does at least seem to be a gentleman, when he remembers to be anything at all."

"He's an _idiot_ ," said Valjean.

There was really nothing Javert could say to that; he _was_ an idiot.

"All boys are idiots at that age," Fantine said, "that's inevitable. Better she knows she can come to you for support if she needs it."

"You're sure you can't arrest him?" Valjean asked Javert plaintively.

"Technically, I probably could," he admitted. "Hanging around your garden gate at all hours could be construed as reasonably likely to cause emotional distress, even if your daughter wanted him there."

"It caused _me_ emotional distress," Valjean muttered.

"Do you want me to?" Javert asked speculatively, eying the chaos on the gym floor below them. "It would probably be ... entertaining, if nothing else."

"No, Fantine's right," Valjean said, after a pause that was substantially longer than Javert expected, and he filed it away in his very small but treasured collection of 'moments when Valjean experienced human weakness'. "If I try to stop them, it'll just bind them together more. I'm not going to try to stop them from dating, anyway. But -- opening the dancing at the History Ball is more than just dating, I've lived in this town long enough to know that. Everyone will be talking about them. They'll be practically engaged. But if I tell them no at the last minute like this, they'll take it as me trying to break them up anyway." He stared down at his coffee with a deeply tragic expression.

"Poor baby," said the woman over the phone. "It's not as bad as all that, you know. This is the 21st century, it's not like she'll have to marry him just because they danced a waltz. Although-- you know, there is an obvious solution to this quandary."

"Have the Detective arrest him?" Valjean said hopefully.

"You're the duly appointed Lord Mayor of the History Days, remember," Fantine said.

"Believe me, I know that very well," said Valjean, frowning into his cup. "Which is why Cosette is opening the dancing; I am told that it's unbreakable tradition that a couple from the Lord Mayor's household has to open the dancing."

"Yes, but they're not the only couple in your household," Fantine said, with an air of deliberate indifference. "You could always open it yourself. With your policeman."

Javert jerked his head over toward the phone at that, startled; he took his only comfort in the fact that Valjean looked even more disconcerted than he was. "Javert and I aren't public," Valjean told her, finally. "I'm not even sure we're actually dating." He snuck a glance in Javert's direction at this.

Javert stared off into the pallid afternoon light that showed beyond the gym's clerestory windows. "I don't bring the good coffee to just anyone, Valjean."

Valjean tipped his cup forward in a mock-toast to this admission. "Still. There's a fair distance between coffee and opening the dancing together."

Javert had been thinking of nothing else since Fantine had suggested it; the idea had taken up residence in his brain like a small frantic wounded animal. He'd spent most of his life hiding and suppressing his sexual preference for men - not, for the most part, out of any shame, but out of a conviction that his profession, and the respect he could only cultivate by remaining incorruptible, were more important than his personal life. Not that he'd had any personal life to speak of. But since Valjean had come to town, and he'd learned the truth about the man in the most dramatic way possible, it felt like everything he knew had been slowly but inexorably rearranging itself, both inside him and around him, until he barely recognized himself or his life from before. And being publicly linked to a man no longer meant what it would have, even twenty years ago. He rolled his cup in his hands. _Was_ it possible, at this late date, for him to let even that last austerity of secrecy go? "It would certainly keep anyone from gossiping about _Cosette's_ amours."

"Yep," agreed Fantine. "And I know my daughter, Jean, she'd be too busy with raptures over how happy she is for you to remember to be disappointed about her own dance."

"And Pontmercy?" Valjean muttered.

"He'd soil his knee-breeches," Javert said, with no little satisfaction.

"He's not wearing knee-breeches, he's wearing bias-cut wool trousers that are so tight they're basically leggings. Cosette has been in raptures about his knees." Valjean took a deep breath, and then dropped one large warm hand onto the bench, just barely touching Javert's own wool-clad thigh. "Which is apparently very 1830s. _Would_ you....?" he asked.

 _I will not dare less than him_ , Javert thought fiercely, but all the same didn't even attempt to meet his eyes. "If you wanted to," he said.

"I'll leave you boys to it, then," Fantine said, with a rather unbecoming note of triumph in her voice. "It's after midnight here and I'm running a seminar in the morning, so I should go anyway. Good night, Papa Jean. Good night, Papa Jean's policeman. Tell Cosette I love her, and to Skype me when she wakes. "

"Good night, Fantine," Valjean said, reaching over to hang up the call without looking away from Javert. He slipped the phone in his pocket and then wrapped both hands around his cup again. "We really shouldn't," he said. "The Chamber of Commerce ladies would never forgive me."

"One musn't risk the wrath of the Chamber of Commerce ladies," Javert agreed. "They do good work in this town and deserve our respect." He stared down at the gym floor, where assorted Chamber of Commerce ladies were busily rearranging some Mylar baloons. Valjean said nothing for a moment; Javert was content to let the silence remain. He drank his coffee.

"Do you happen to know how to dance?" Valjean asked eventually.

"Not in the least," replied Javert, with some satisfaction. "I don't imagine you do either."

"Eh," said Valjean, and made a non-committal gesture with one hand.

Javert turned to look at him in astonishment. "When did you learn ballroom?"

"When did I learn anything?" Valjean asked, staring off into the clerestory windows. "I didn't just take computer classes in prison. I was trying to be a model prisoner - I took every enrichment course they offered. I speak French and Spanish, I know how to crochet, I can write three different kinds of sonnets, and I was the best Lady Capulet the drama group had in years." He stood up, straightened his coat, and gathered his things. "Let's go out to the courtyard - I'll see if I can teach you some basics."

Javert was too busy trying to imagine Valjean as Lady Capulet to muster an objection. It wasn't the dresses, he thought, or the acting; it was the breadth of the shoulders. He had an excellent view of those shoulders as he followed Valjean down the short hallway to the courtyard door; whichever of the Chamebr of Commerce ladies had tailored the green wool coat had cut it perfectly to emphasize the broadness of his shoulders and narrowness of his waist, while irresistably tempting the viewer to imagine the musculature underneath. Javert, who had been privileged to touch those shoulders without clothing intervening on Wednesday night, and had hopes for early tomorrow morning after the ball, watched the way the fine wool creased and strained against Valjean's body and thought that he owed that particular town matron even more gratitude for her good citizenship than the usual.

Shortly they arrived at a small enclosed courtyard usually used by high schoolers sneaking smokes. Valjean opened the door and gestured him grandly in.

Javert rolled his eyes and ducked through. The shelter of the walls at least kept the wind out, but the air was biting, and the little concrete enclosure with its few scraggly weeds was unrelentingly bleak. He wrapped his hand firmly around the warmth of his coffee and tried not to show weakness.

Valjean put his coffee down on the cigarette-scarred bench and then propped his iphone on it. "Who knew Cosette's favorite music app would actually come in handy some day," he said as he poked at it, and a moment later something tinkly started playing. "We'll just try a waltz," he said. "Definitely scandalous enough for 1833."

Javert gripped his coffee even tighter. "I've changed my mind, it's a bad idea," he said. "I'm fairly sure I'm unteachable."

Valjean smiled at him with that same deadly compassion that had been stripping all his defenses for years. "Put the coffee down, Javert," he said, "and dance with me. Please."

Javert sighed, and put the coffee and the hat down, and submitted to Valjean's hand on his shoulder, and the other hand in his. Somehow he suddenly wasn't cold anymore. He considering stepping back to take off his greatcoat but decided it would be too awkward.

"A waltz is based on three beats," Valjean said, staring vaguely over Javert's shoulder. "Can you hear that in the music? Da da da, da da da?"

Javert knew nothing whatsoever about music except that as a child he'd been told he had no sense of rhythm and had never felt any need to contest that fact. It just sounded like music to him. "Yes, of course, three beats," he said.

Valjean nodded. "The steps are based on a square - you go around the corners of the square on each step. See if you can follow me."

 _Doesn't a square have four corners, not three?_ he didn't ask. Presumably it would all make sense at some point if he just followed the instructions. He nodded. Valjean said "One, two, three," and took a step.

 _The corners of a box_ Javert recited to himself, stepped on Valjean's foot, got his feet tangled up trying to recover, and would have fallen over the bench if Valjean hadn't grabbed him and held on.

"Ah," said Valjean. "Why don't I do the steps by myself, you watch, and try to copy me?"

Javert watched. It looked fairly simple, but "That's not a square, it's a triangle," he accused.

Valjean looked down at his own feet and blinked. "I suppose it is, with one person. Each person does three of the corners, but they do two of them together, so it makes a square."

"I see." He thought about it. "I might see. Shall we try again?"

Valjean held his arms open.

Javert was pretty sure he did have the steps down, but then he tried to close the box and Valjean wasn't where he expected him to be and that time Valjean stepped on _his_ foot, and then he forgot they were supposed to be holding hands and almost punched himself in the face.

"Keep going," Valjean said, "It's the only way to learn."

Javert tried - he really did - but every time he thought he had it something happened and they got out of sync, or he went one way and Valjean the other, or he concentrated too much on trying to hear a beat and forgot he was supposed to move his feet, or the music did a weird flourishy thing and he tripped. He probably should have been enjoying being so close to Valjean - they were still being so careful that the freedom to touch was new and startling - but he was far too aware of how badly he must be disappointing him.

Finally the music stopped of its own accord, with neither of them permanently maimed, and Valjean stepped back. "I know, I'm--" Javert started, but Valjean cut him off with a shake of his head.

"I haven't done this in years either," he said. "Maybe a waltz is too much to start with. Let's try just swaying to the beat, the way the kids do." He restarted the track on his phone.

"Swaying together" somehow involved standing much closer to Valjean than the waltz did, with Valjean's arm wrapped all the way around his waist. It still wasn't easy - he hadn't quite figured out the trick of keeping the beat, and Valjean was a lot more distracting this way - but since he didn't have to move his feet, he managed not to trip over or step on anything. When Valjean started doing a little shuffling turn around the bench, he followed him without disaster happening. He was almost starting to relax into it a tiny bit when he heard the door open and a voice screech "Detective Javert! There you are!"

He jumped away from Valjean in surprise, forgot the bench was directly behind him, fell back across it, and caught himself just in time to avoid spilling Valjean's coffee all over his iPhone.

"Mrs. Victurnien," he said blankly a second later as his mind cleared enough to recognize her, and then pulled himself upright again and straightened his collor. "What a surprise." She was vice-chair of the Ladies' Auxiliary of the Volunteer Fire Department: one of the most terrorizingly respectable of the lot. "The Lord Mayor was just teaching me to dance."

"How nice," she said, with a general air of finding such details beneath her, but then her expression suddenly sharpened with the air of having scented gossip. "Are you thinking about finally dancing tonight, then, Detective? Did you have a particular lady in mind? Would you like me to find you someone?"

"No!" Javert said. My God, that would be out of the frying pan and into the fire. "No thank you, ma'am, it's a very kind offer, and if I feel the need for that I'll know who to go to, but not right now. I don't think I'm ready for dancing in public yet, anyway."

"Hmmph," she said, and peered at him again, then, "Well, I was looking for you because there's been some kind of disagreement about the parking, and I thought to myself, we ought to get a policeman there to sort it out."

"Quite right, ma'am," he said. "I'll be right there. The main lot?"

She nodded. "Right by the drive. Ta, then, lots to do!" and she whisked out again.

Left alone again, Valjean and Javert stared at each other. "Well, I should go then," he said. "I need to be on duty five minutes ago anyway."

Valjean nodded, then scratched at his head. "About the dancing," he said. "Maybe we shouldn't--"

"Maybe we should let Cosette and Marius have their dance?" Javert said.

"Yes," Valjean said with relief. "It should be a night for young people, after all."

"And me, dancing, is probably a bad idea all around," he added dryly. "Wiser not. Well, in that case, I'll see you once I've finished supervising the parking." He settled the hat firmly on his head and picked up his coffee.

The scuffle over the parking ended up escalating to a fistfight that he had to break up (and probably would have ended in arrests, two years ago - what had Valjean done to him?) By the time that was solved, he was informed that three of their traffic control volunteers had showed up too drunk to work and Officer Joly had called out sick, so he ended up spending the next hour-and-a-half running between crises and keeping people from causing automobile accidents.

The next time he managed to catch his breath, he'd missed opening ceremonies for the ball. He'd been expected to be there as official representative for the police, but wasn't particularly upset to have a good excuse to skip the speeches. If he hurried, though, he could probably still be there to provide support for Valjean while Cosette danced with Marius.

Sure enough, he slipped in the back doors of the auditorium to see Cosette being spun around an empty dance floor by her young man, while the high school orchestra played something sort of like a waltz. With his newly educated eye, he could see that Marius _was_ a better waltzer than he was, but not by dint of any natural talent - he was spending much of his time staring in deep concentration at his feet while Cosette glowed in his general direction. 

Javert pushed through the crowd toward where Valjean would sitting in state, in order to share this comforting observation with him. He couldn't help hearing comments as he passed, though. "Aren't they adorable together." "They're just such a perfect couple." "I hear they're going to get married as soon as Cosette graduates, isn't that wonderful?" "Imagine being so committed at that age!" By the time he found Valjean, he was frowning.

Valjean patted the empty velvet-draped folding chair next to him. "I saved you a seat," he said, but didn't look away from the dancers. He wasn't so much frowning as radiating pure death in the boy's general direction. Javert overheard another comment about the town's new favorite couple and winced: Valjean couldn't have avoided hearing that. He wondered if Cosette knew what she was getting into - he hadn't thought she was quite that serious about the boy yet. They swung around to the opposite side of the floor, and Javert made a snap decision.

"My lord mayor," he said. Instead of sitting down he doffed his hat in a half-bowed, and held a hand to Valjean: "Would you care for a dance?"

Valjean broke his glare at that, and looked Javert up and down. "You changed your mind?"

Javert shrugged. "If you did. I can't dance any better than I could two hours ago, mind you, but I figure either way, they won't be talking about Cosette anymore."

Valjean stared at him a second more, and then smiled and took his hand. "Well, in that case, Detective Javert, I would be honored."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Based entirely on staring at this picture until it started to make sense: 


End file.
